Mode of Program Participation

Academic Scholarship

Participation Type

Panel

Session Title

Harnessing the Power of the Built Environment to Effect Social, Environmental, and Economic Change in Appalachia

Session Abstract or Summary

Douglas Reichert Powell has demonstrated how studies of the region’s built environment—buildings, cultural landscapes, rural communities, and cities—gives Appalachian scholars a particularly rich “opportunity simultaneously to examine the failed experiments of the past and make arguments for a better version to come” (2015: 191, 2007). Yet, most Appalachian scholars, and activists, have tended to ignore the role the built environment can play in efforts to challenge stereotypes and to address social, environmental, and economic injustices in the region.

Activists, and scholars from across a number of disciplines have skillfully demonstrated how, like regions, the built environment is a social construct that is continually shaped and reshaped by the practices of its inhabitants, policy makers, and politicians. Some have focused on showing how the built environment has been used historically to create and perpetuate inequality, while others have offered suggestions for how the built environment can be used to effect change (Jacobs 1961, Upton 1984, Mitchell 1996, Hayden 1997, Hayden 2004, Davies 2006, Satler 2009, Barraclough 2011, Harris 2013, Upton 2015).

This interdisciplinary panel (architect, landscape architect, and architectural historian) will draw on the theories of these, and other scholar-activists, to demonstrate how specific examples of the built environment can help: 1) write a more democratic history of the region while linking the past to the future; 2) address media stereotypes and leverage a changing media landscape; and 3) help create sustainable communities in a post-industrial era by planning for whole place management.

About the Presenter

Presentation #1 Title

Desiging Women in Appalachia: Linking the Past to the Future

Presentation #1 Abstract or Summary

A number of Appalachian scholars have considered the central role women played in movements to “uplift” the region, particularly during the Progressive Era. Most, however, have focused on the “fotched-on” women who entered “mountain work” by carving out new areas of expertise that had gone unclaimed by men—education, social work, nursing, recreation, and cultural work, for example (Whisnant 1983, Forderhase 1985 and 1987, England 1990, Tice 1998, Barney 2000, Goan 2000, Stoddart 2002). In this paper I will analyze the “mountain work” of women, both “fotched-on” and native, who dared to challenge the status quo by directly competing in the traditional male profession of architecture, a field that Despina Stratigakos argues still has not successfully integrated women (Stratigakos 2016). Using written records, including diaries and letters, oral history, original architectural drawings, historic photographs, and the buildings themselves, I will present the architectural work of four groups of women, who worked in the Mountain South between the late-nineteenth-century and the 1990s. With one exception, the women were untrained in architecture, and the one who had professionally training was denied official admittance to the profession. Despite having no professional recognition, I will demonstrate how all of the women harnessed the built environment to gain personal power, while at the same time shaping public discourse. While this diverse group of women may seem to have had little in common, I will argue that they all employed a collaborative design, an observation that Stratigakos has associated with other designing women. Finally, I will conclude this paper by suggesting lessons these historical players have to offer social justice activists working in the region today.

At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #1

Karen Hudson teaches architectural history in the Department of Historic Preservation at the University of Kentucky. She has studied the built environment of the Mountain South for over two decades. She is particularly interested in examining the ways architectural history and historic preservation might be employed to undermine dominant and unjust cultural constructs. She is currently completing a book manuscript titled “Back and Forth Flies the Shuttle: The Cultural Landscape of an Appalachian Settlement School (University Press of Kentucky).

Presentation #2 Title

Assembling Appalachia: Appalshop and the Architecture of Media

Presentation #2 Abstract or Summary

Founded by the architect Bill Richardson in 1969, Appalshop is a grassroots organization that promotes cultural production from within Appalachia. Through documentary filmmaking, community radio, music recordings, live performances, theater productions, and graphic arts, Appalshop supports “making media in the mountains” from its home in Whitesburg, Kentucky. Since it began, Appalshop has added many new projects and programs, and as a result, the gallery, theater, radio station, archive, recording studio, offices, and training spaces have reached their capacity. Building on Appalshop’s tradition of creative cultural production, this paper documents the design process of third-year undergraduate architecture students in the College of Design at the University of Kentucky as they explored possibilities for expanding the Appalshop campus in Whitesburg. Integral to these projects is an interrogation of the relationship between architecture and media in Appalachia.

Shortly before Appalshop formed, media theorist Marshall McLuhan highlighted the power of media in communication with his famous proclamation, “the media is the message.” More recently, architectural historian Beatriz Colomina identified the role of media in producing modern architecture, and as the media landscape continues to change into the twenty-first century, these relationships become increasingly complex. This paper builds on the historical and theoretical developments of Appalshop as a way of addressing contemporary interactions between architecture and media. Drawing on McLuhan and Colomina, it asks three primary questions: What is the relationship between architecture and cultural production in Appalachia? How does the changing landscape of media affect architecture? What is the role of design in the production of media and cultural artifacts?

At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #2

Brent Sturlaugson is a licensed architect and teaches design, history, and theory at University of Kentucky. His research explores the intersection of architecture and politics in ways that promote social and environmental sustainability. He has received awards from the American Institute of Architects, the Society of American Registered Architects, and the Institute of International Education, and his work has been published in CITY, CLOG, and Constructs. Sturlaugson received a Bachelor of Architecture from University of Oregon and a Master of Environmental Design from Yale University.

Presentation #3 Title

Kentucky Trail Towns in Appalachia: Design and Planning Perspective of Community and Economic Development Effort to Enhance Town and Trail Relationship

Presentation #3 Abstract or Summary

Appalachian communities have established in geographically advantageous locations that can benefit from increased tourism activities along recreational trails, rivers and overall preserved natural resources. The of trail town concept has emerged and evolved into formal programs that are being utilized as community and economic develop efforts. The Kentucky Trail Town program at the state level facilitates communities to better connect with established recreational trails for adventure tourism purposes. Ideally, trail towns should be able to strengthen their community capacity, enhance physical environments, and be prepared with services and hospitality to greet its users, residents and visitors.

Among 14 certified Trail Towns in Kentukcy since 2013, Appalachia is home to 13 designations, particularly in and around the Daniel Boone National Forest that includes the Sheltowee Trace National Recreation Trail and Cumberland Mountains area. These communities are surrounded by other types of natural, cultural and historical resources that can potentially diversify their economies. However, the user-friendliness of the early trail towns is questionable. Some of the communities lack visible amenities and services in close proximity to their major trailheads and core areas of town. Through a systematic assessment, more planning and design considerations should be identified so that access to existing trails are more effective and user friendly. The Kentucky Trail Town program has opened a new era of economic activities with communities in the Appalachian Region. As a long term vision, further considerations for overall environmental management have the potential to not only preserve significant landscape characteristics and place identity but appeal to future trails town users.

At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #3

Jayoung Koo is an assistant extension professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture at the University of Kentucky. Her experiences in landscape architecture, planning and community design guide her work structuring sound design solutions and strategies with communities. Jayoung facilitates sustainable placemaking dialogues at various scales and contexts.

Presentation #4 Title

Comment

At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #4

Ned Crankshaw is chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture at the University of Kentucky. His research is in cultural landscapes and he has recently worked on landscape preservation plans for sites in the utopian community of New Harmony, Indiana and on the restoration of a pioneer road in the Lower Howard’s Creek State Preserve in Kentucky. His current work is developing methods for using remotely-sensed data to analyze land cover change in cultural landscapes.

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Desiging Women in Appalachia: Linking the Past to the Future

A number of Appalachian scholars have considered the central role women played in movements to “uplift” the region, particularly during the Progressive Era. Most, however, have focused on the “fotched-on” women who entered “mountain work” by carving out new areas of expertise that had gone unclaimed by men—education, social work, nursing, recreation, and cultural work, for example (Whisnant 1983, Forderhase 1985 and 1987, England 1990, Tice 1998, Barney 2000, Goan 2000, Stoddart 2002). In this paper I will analyze the “mountain work” of women, both “fotched-on” and native, who dared to challenge the status quo by directly competing in the traditional male profession of architecture, a field that Despina Stratigakos argues still has not successfully integrated women (Stratigakos 2016). Using written records, including diaries and letters, oral history, original architectural drawings, historic photographs, and the buildings themselves, I will present the architectural work of four groups of women, who worked in the Mountain South between the late-nineteenth-century and the 1990s. With one exception, the women were untrained in architecture, and the one who had professionally training was denied official admittance to the profession. Despite having no professional recognition, I will demonstrate how all of the women harnessed the built environment to gain personal power, while at the same time shaping public discourse. While this diverse group of women may seem to have had little in common, I will argue that they all employed a collaborative design, an observation that Stratigakos has associated with other designing women. Finally, I will conclude this paper by suggesting lessons these historical players have to offer social justice activists working in the region today.